AllThingsD » ThinkPad

China's Lenovo Plans Gradual U.S. Push

Ian Sherr — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 22:12:16 +0000

Lenovo Group Ltd. has only just started in the U.S.

The Chinese computer maker, which is known for its ThinkPad personal computers, is working its way toward the American consumer market with what it says is a thoughtful, if slow, approach that will culminate in the company’s first high-end PCs for U.S. buyers later this year.

“We have the best products in commercial space with the Think brand,” said Yang Yuanqing, Lenovo’s chief executive, in an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show here. He plans to rely on the popularity of his company’s well-regarded business computers to start selling the high-end PCs.

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You've Come a Long Way, ThinkPad: Lenovo Unveils New Ultrabooks, Windows 8 Tablet

Lauren Goode — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 23:01:12 +0000

On the 20th anniversary of the ThinkPad line of laptops, China-based computer maker Lenovo has officially unveiled two new Ultrabooks alongside a tablet designed for the upcoming Windows 8 operating system.

One of the new laptops, the 14-inch ThinkPad X1 Carbon, was reviewed in full by AllThingsD’s Walt Mossberg here. Walt described it as a “high-end, thin and light Ultrabook model with a high price tag.”

The other Ultrabook is the ThinkPad T430u, geared more toward small business users. If you vaguely recall getting your geek on with a graphics-friendly Ultrabook at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year, this laptop was probably it. It boasts Nvidia discrete graphics with Intel third-gen processors and claims a battery life of seven hours. It has a 14-inch HD display, is .83 inch thick and weighs just over four pounds. Pricing on that model is $779 — much less than the X1 Carbon price of $1299 — and it is expected to hit the market sometime this month.

But let’s talk tablets: When Microsoft launches its Surface tablet in October, Lenovo will be right there alongside it with its 10-inch Windows 8 ThinkPad Tablet 2. (The first version of the ThinkPad Tablet was running a Google Android OS.)

The Intel Atom Processor-based ThinkPad Tablet 2 weighs just over a pound and is a third of an inch thick. While the 10.1-inch screen supports multi-finger touch, Lenovo is also throwing in an optional digitizer and stylus, and will offer a keyboard and dock option for the touchscreen-averse. It has both rear and front-facing cameras and USB and HDMI ports. Lenovo says the tablet will get 10 hours of battery life.

Lenovo declined to put a price point on the ThinkPad Tablet 2, for now.

And in terms of connectivity, it’s unclear right now which wireless carriers if any will support this 3G and 4G-compatible tablet. As AllThingsD’s Ina Fried covered here, Lenovo in June began selling its own wireless broadband service, for consumers and business users constantly on the go, so it’s likely the tablet will work with that service to start.

Back to School With Two Thin Laptops -- One Pricey, One Not

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 01:02:54 +0000

While many potential laptop buyers are waiting for the Oct. 26 release of Windows 8 and the new hardware designed to use it, not everyone can afford to tarry. Students going back to school, or folks whose computers desperately need replacing, are in the market now, and computer makers are bringing out new models to entice them.

[ See post to watch video ]

Apple has recently refreshed its laptop lineup and equipped it with a new version of its operating system called Mountain Lion. These Macs are excellent machines, well worth considering. But for people who prefer Windows PCs, there are new choices packaged with Windows 7, but upgradable later to Windows 8.

I tested two new Windows laptops, aimed at different ends of the market. One, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon, is a high-end, thin and light Ultrabook model with a high price tag. The other, the Hewlett-Packard Envy 6 Sleekbook, is a handsome, midrange machine meant for the budget-conscious.

Both machines have their virtues. I much preferred the ThinkPad, from a design and performance standpoint, but it starts at a whopping $1,399 and is meant for people like business travelers with deep pockets. The HP delivers good value and a larger screen for a very attractive $599 starting price, and is meant more for students or people who are willing to trade price for somewhat slower performance, and greater bulk and weight.

Neither machine was very impressive in my battery tests, and the costly Lenovo did worse than the much more affordable HP.

The LenovoThinkPad X1 Carbon is a high-end Ultrabook that fits a 14-inch screen into the body of a 13-inch laptop.

Before getting into the details of each of these laptops, a word of caution is in order. Windows 8 is designed to work with touch-screen computers, and neither of these two laptops, nor most others on the market today, have touch screens. Microsoft says Windows 8 will still work fine with a standard, nontouch-screen laptop, and both Lenovo and HP assured me these models will handle Windows 8 well. But as I’ve said before, you’ll get more out of Windows 8 with a touch-screen PC.

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon, available Aug. 21, pulls off an impressive feat: It fits a 14-inch screen into a body more typical of a 13-inch laptop. It weighs just 3 pounds, is less than ¾-inch thick, and is only about 13 inches long and 9 inches deep. It is eminently portable, easily usable on an airplane seat tray.

One reason for the machine’s light weight is that it uses carbon fiber, a strong but light material, for much of its tapered body, which is in the traditional ThinkPad black. It felt rugged and solid.

Not only has Lenovo crammed a larger screen into a small case, but it has endowed the screen with an especially high resolution of 1600 by 900. That means that more of a Web page or document is visible without scrolling than on some larger displays.

ThinkPads have long been known for great keyboards and the X1 Carbon is no exception. For this model, Lenovo has tweaked the keys to provide a larger top surface and greater separation. I found typing on this backlit keyboard to be a real pleasure.

The touchpad, which is made of glass, is 37 percent larger than on the prior model and the company says it will accommodate the gestures built into Windows 8. It was smooth and responsive in my tests.

The new ThinkPad handled every app or program I tested quickly and well. It doesn’t use a traditional hard disk, but instead relies on a solid-state drive — essentially flash memory — and was able to resume from sleep almost instantly. The downside of this is that you only get 128 gigabytes of storage in the base model.

I was disappointed that such a premium laptop was mediocre in my harsh battery test, where I turn off all power-saving features, set the screen brightness to 100 percent, leave the Wi-Fi on to collect email in the background and play a continuous loop of music.

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon got just four hours, one minute in this test, which means that in more normal use, you’d likely get about five hours. That is well below the company’s claim of 6.3 hours.

The Hewlett-Packard Envy 6 Sleekbook uses an AMD processor and has a design that makes the machine look lighter, with a red, rubbery bottom.

HP’s Envy 6 Sleekbook, available now, is an entirely different type of laptop. It costs less than half as much, but is a lot larger. It has a 15.6 inch screen, though with a lower resolution of 1366 by 768, so it actually displays less of a Web page or document without scrolling.

HP calls this laptop a Sleekbook, not an Ultrabook, because it uses an AMD processor, and Ultrabook is a term that applies to Intel-based laptops. The Envy 6 Sleekbook is almost 15 inches long and 10 inches deep and just under 0.8 inch thick. It weighs 4.5 pounds. It isn’t hard to carry, but if you’re used to a smaller, lighter laptop, there’s no mistaking the fact you’re lugging something bigger. The design makes the machine look lighter, with a black, brushed aluminum cover and a red, rubbery bottom.

In general, I found the Sleekbook to be a bit sluggish, though it handled every program properly. The touchpad also felt stiff, though the keyboard was fine. The desktop is marred by icons for trial software, especially games.

But the Sleekbook has some advantages beyond price. It boasts a 500 gigabyte hard disk, an HDMI port for connecting to a TV, and an Ethernet port for wired Internet connections — ports that the costlier Lenovo lacks.

The HP also outperformed the Lenovo on my battery test, clocking in at four hours, 40 minutes, which means you might get six hours in normal use. The company claims up to nine hours.

The X1 Carbon continues the tradition of the ThinkPad’s superior design and performance, and is a solid choice for those who can live with its price tag and middling battery life. The Envy 6 Sleekbook is a good choice for students, provided they want a heavier, larger laptop.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Lenovo Looks to Bridge Business and Consumer With New Ultra-Light and Ultrabook ThinkPads

Lauren Goode — Tue, 15 May 2012 04:01:36 +0000

ThinkPad laptops have long been associated with boxiness, durability, good battery life and a broad appeal for business users and schools.

Now, Lenovo, which bought the ThinkPad brand when it acquired IBM’s personal computer business in 2005, is stripping away some of the weight of the ThinkPad, with a new lightweight model that falls into the Ultrabook category.

The China-based PC maker is also introducing new ThinkPad X, T, W and L Series models, including the lightweight X230, and the ThinkPad X230t, a 12-inch convertible tablet that comes with a fully attached keyboard.

First, the X1 Carbon: Lenovo is claiming the featherweight title with this one, calling it the world’s lightest 14-inch professional Ultrabook. It clocks in at three pounds and, as one might expect from the name, is built with carbon fiber. It has an HD display and backlit keyboard, and is running Intel’s Ivy Bridge processors. Business users will appreciate the option to connect to 3G wireless networks via the laptop, provided that they’ve subscribed to a data plan through a carrier, for those times one needs to get work done and Wi-Fi is as unavailable as water in the desert.

While Lenovo says the laptop can be fully charged in 30 minutes, it’s unclear how long the battery charge is expected to last; and a few other details about the product — such as price and the number of built-in ports — are still unknown. The X1 Carbon Ultrabook will hit the market this summer.

Lenovo’s first entrant in the Ultrabook market, the IdeaPad U300s, which AllThingsD’s Walt Mossberg reviewed late last year, costs $1,095 and comes with a 128 gigabyte drive, 4GB of memory and Intel’s i5 processor. And at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, Lenovo showed off the $849 ThinkPad T430u Ultrabook, which is 12mm thick and weighs less than four pounds.

And then there are Lenovo’s new ThinkPad X, T, W, and L Series laptops, which also include Intel’s third-generation Core processors, Dolby audio, HD displays and ThinkPad Precision keyboards with optional backlighting. The T430s is the ThinkPad line’s lightest 14-inch (non-Ultrabook) laptop, while the T530 has a 15-inch full-HD display. But the most notable feature of these laptops is probably the addition of 4G/LTE broadband availability through Lenovo’s upcoming contract-free broadband service. The laptops will go on sale in June, and will range in price from $879 to $1,399.

A punched-up X230 ThinkPad will hit the market in June for $1,179, claiming up to 24 hours of battery life in a 12.5-inch form factor and weighing less than three pounds. This laptop also comes with 4G/LTE mobile broadband access.

If you’d rather have your X230 in tablet form, Lenovo has thought of that, too: The ThinkPad X230t has a rotating display that can be folded over to create an instant tablet. It is touchscreen enabled, comes with a stylus pen and also works with a ThinkPad laser mouse. (Lenovo has been playing with this form factor for a long time, actually. For an idea of how it works, check out this YouTube video.)

The convertible tablet (tabtop? laplet?) will start at around $1,479.

For the most part, these new entrants are still geared toward the professional market. But Tom Butler, Lenovo’s global director of product marketing, says the company is looking to appeal to consumers, too, in what Lenovo calls the “PC-plus” era. “From a ThinkPad perspective, we’re looking at the ‘consumerization’ of tech, so we’re addressing not only the IT departments but also the consumer,” he said.

Given the growing BYOD trend in corporations, it seems like a wise move. But whether workers given the option to work on their own laptops would prefer to bring in a consumer-ized Lenovo ThinkPad or a MacBook Air — or another, thinner Mac laptop reported to be on the way — is still to be seen.

A Look Back at IBM's Palmisano Era and the China Strategy

Arik Hesseldahl — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 17:33:14 +0000

Saturday was Sam Palmisano’s last day on the job as CEO of IBM, and Sunday was Ginny Rometty’s first.

The New York Times published something of an exit interview with Palmisano over the weekend. It read a bit like a victory lap, and that’s not undeserved. The record books will show that IBM shares during the Palmisano era (2003-2011) rose by 125 percent; sales grew from $81 billion in 2002 to an expected $107 billion; and annual profits on a per-share basis went from $3.07 to a consensus forecast of $13.38.

But it got me to thinking about one of the highlights of the Palmisano era; one that generated a great deal of attention at the time: IBM’s decision to sell its personal computer division to Lenovo, the Chinese PC maker. It was a relatively small deal, worth less than $2 billion at the time, but it was a controversial move. Despite the fact that IBM wasn’t making much money on the business, IBM PCs, especially its ThinkPad line of notebooks, were generally considered to be pretty good.

Nearly seven years later, it’s worth noting that Lenovo is now the world’s second-largest PC vendor, behind Hewlett-Packard, having vaulted past Dell earlier this year, according to the market research firm IDC. It’s also worth noting that Lenovo is in fifth place in the U.S., behind HP, Dell, Apple and Toshiba, in that order.

IBM initially owned 15 percent of Lenovo and maintained a stake in that company until February of this year, when it sold its remaining 4.3 percent shares at a profit of more than a quarter-billion dollars.

Lenovo’s biggest shareholder is Legend Holdings, of which 36 percent is owned by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a.k.a. CAS Holdings, a state-controlled entity. The state has pared back its stake, though: When the IBM-Lenovo deal was announced in 2005, Lenovo was 57 percent state-owned.

There was a lot of natural controversy, and even national security concerns in 2005, about selling so red-blooded an American product as the IBM PC to China. But there was also a solid business case to consider. The PC business was a drag on earnings because of downward price pressure exerted by Dell and all the others, and it wasn’t even leading the market, as was the case with Hewlett-Packard, which engaged in some very public contemplation about spinning off its own PC division.

But there was also a potential strategic benefit, which Michael Useem, a professor a the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Management, pointed out at the time: Making friends with China.

By selling an underperforming asset to a buyer willing to take it and run with it, IBM got solid access to the exploding Chinese market. In paraphrased remarks to the Times, Palmisano concedes the point:

Palmisano says he deflected overtures from Dell and private equity firms, preferring the sale to a company in China for strategic reasons: the Chinese government wants its corporations to expand globally, and by aiding that national goal, IBM enhanced its stature in the lucrative Chinese market, where the government still steers business.

So how has that worked out? It’s a little hard to tell from reading Big Blue’s Byzantine financial statements. In fiscal 2005, the year the deal closed, IBM reported $18.6 billion, or about 20 percent of revenue, came from the Asia-Pacific region, including China.

And though it declined to provide specific dollar amounts, it said that year that sales in China had dropped by 19 percent, but after after stripping out the PC division, would have grown by 8 percent.

For the first nine months of fiscal 2011, IBM reported that the Asia-Pacific region accounted for exactly the same dollar figure — $18.6 billion — amounting to 24 percent of its overall sales of $77.4 billion, and there’s still a quarter to go. That would put Asia on track to account for a little less than a quarter of IBM’s revenue.

In its earnings statement, IBM also makes a point of calling attention to what it calls “growth markets,” which are generally the BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China. These markets combined for 23 percent of sales in IBM’s most recent quarter.

This is about as close to understanding the size of IBM’s business in China as we’re going to get. On balance, it looks to have been a positive move, especially when you consider that if IBM had kept its PC division, it would have likely only gotten smaller and become more of a profit drag on a company that’s increasingly focused on high-margin businesses like services and consulting.

Nor can we judge by IBM’s headcount. Globally, as of the publication of its last annual report, IBM employed 426,751 people. But it has stopped providing a geographical breakdown. A report in the Times of India in 2010, mentioned by The Wall Street Journal, suggested that Big Blue’s headcount in India might be as high as 130,000; which, if true, would make it one of that country’s top 10 employers.

There is no question that IBM’s presence in China has grown. You can tell by the press releases. There was for example, a new IBM Research lab in Shanghai in 2008, and another in 2010. Just last month, IBM announced that it had closed a significant IT deal for a major health-care provider in Hong Kong, and another with a Chinese province to improve the safety of pork (which included a food-safety video I embedded below).

For better or worse, Palmisano will be remembered as the man who traded PCs for access to China. On balance, it seems to have been a good trade, but the jury is still out.

Tomorrow is the first business day of IBM’s Rometty era. Assuming she retires at age 60, a well-established IBM tradition, she’ll have about six years to make her mark. One wonders what she’ll be remembered for most.

Lenovo Jumps Into Tablet Fray With Two Android Models and a Windows 7 Device for Good Measure

Ina Fried — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 04:00:44 +0000

After sitting on the sidelines for much of this year, Lenovo is just about ready to enter the Android tablet market.

The company is announcing both a consumer model, the IdeaPad Tablet K1, and a more business-oriented product, the ThinkPad Tablet. The former features support for Netflix and a range of included entertainment software, while the latter features pen support and an optional plug-in keyboard dock. Both products have 10-inch screens, start at $499 and will go on sale in August, with pre-orders being taken starting on Wednesday.

“Tablets are extremely personal technology devices,” Senior VP Liu Jun said in a statement. “That’s why we’ve created a family of tablets that has something for everyone, including entertainment-friendly features and content for consumers, or business-friendly features to enhance productivity for professionals as well as security and manageability for IT managers.”

The IdeaPad includes 32GB of memory, while the ThinkPad Tablet comes with 16GB of memory and includes a variety of features aimed at offering business-level security and reliability. The initial ThinkPad model is Wi-Fi only, but Lenovo said 3G models are also in the works and should come shortly after the first ThinkPad Tablets hit the market.

Lenovo is planning its own Lenovo App Shop to provide access to apps customized and tested for its hardware as well as to allow businesses to serve up programs privately to their users.

The company is just the latest big name announcing plans for an Android tablet. Sony is also hoping to prove that taking one’s time can pay off, with its first Android tablets — the slate-shaped S1 and clamshell S2 — not expected until this fall.

The question is just how big the market is for Android tablets, at least at this juncture, with few apps available and a number of hardware makers already selling products, including Motorola, Acer and Samsung, to name just a few.

Lenovo also has plans for a new Windows 7 tablet, the IdeaPad Tablet P1, due in the fourth quarter.

Exclusive: Lenovo Exec Sees a Lot to Like in Windows 8, but Betting on Android, Too

Ina Fried — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 17:36:14 +0000

When Peter Hortensius looks at Windows 8, he sees a lot to like.

Of course, as president of Lenovo’s product unit, Hortensius has been looking at Windows 8 for a lot longer than the rest of us, most of whom got their first glimpse of the new Windows when it was shown on stage at D9 on Wednesday.

“It’s definitely going to be a big, bold move,” Hortensius said.

Hortensius said that Windows 8 will appeal to those who buy traditional PCs, will make those devices better and will also open up new opportunities with new kinds of machines based on ARM processors.

“You will see both the ARM platforms and the base Intel platforms get substantially better,” he said. “We find that very exciting.”

In particular, Hortensius pointed to the ability of Windows 8 machines not only to resume quickly from sleep, but also to maintain a network connection so they are also quickly usable.

“The part that makes me most excited is not just the new look, but along with that comes features like always-on, always-connected, which really to me addresses a big sore point of the traditional PC,” he said. “I have to boot it and I have to then restore connections.”

Hortensius said he isn’t too worried that businesses will be scared off by the new tiled start-screen that accompanies the traditional Windows desktop. Nor does he think it is that big a deal that Microsoft isn’t allowing customers an option of just booting into a more traditional Windows desktop.

“If business customers want that, they already have that,” he said. “It’s called Windows 7.”

But, as many doors as it sees being opened by Windows 8, Lenovo is also expanding its bet on Android. The company has already launched a couple of products in China, but is preparing a number of Honeycomb-based tablets for a global launch this summer.

One area Lenovo is exploring is the notion of incorporating a pen back into tablet computing.

“What you are doing right now, you could not do with your finger,” Hortensius said, pointing to the fact that I was taking handwritten notes. “The touch interface is amazing. If you are trying to quickly look through stuff it is wonderful. There are a lot of other instances where you clearly would rather use a pen.”

As for having to support multiple operating systems, Hortensius said that is probably just a fact of life.

“I think that’s the new world,” he said.

In 4G Race, Verizon Pulls Ahead With Pricey Speed

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 02:03:48 +0000

One of the biggest technology trends in 2011 will be the expansion of new, faster cellular networks called 4G, or fourth generation. These networks promise a big increase in speed and capacity to handle the surge in streaming video, audio and Web surfing from hot-selling devices like super-smart phones and tablets, as well as from laptops. But you’ll have to buy new phones, modems and other connected consumer devices to get the higher speed they offer.

[ See post to watch video ]

Wireless carriers and handset makers will be touting their 4G plans and compatible devices at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, but it will be a couple of years before 4G networks in the U.S. achieve the same coverage as the current standard, called 3G.

The move to 4G from 3G began last year, with Sprint leading the way and Verizon Wireless joining in the last few weeks of 2010 with a limited deployment. But 2011 will see the service spreading to more and more cities, and is also expected to see the entry of AT&T. T-Mobile hasn’t announced an actual 4G network rollout, but is instead relying on a souped-up version of 3G that it is marketing as 4G because it claims it can deliver similar data speeds with its approach.

I’ve been testing the 4G network of the latest entrant, Verizon, in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., which is one of 38 metro areas (plus 60 airports) where the company turned on its 4G network in December. My verdict is that it’s wicked fast—the fastest 4G network I’ve tried—but also potentially costly. In my tests, with a laptop modem, it proved dramatically faster than Verizon’s 3G network, and recorded speeds on a par with some land-line Internet connections.

But 4G from Verizon won’t be cheap. For laptop modem users, at least, Verizon is charging $50 a month for up to 5 gigabytes of data use and $80 monthly for 10 gigabytes. If you run over, the company will bill you $10 for every extra gigabyte. Such data limits aren’t new, but, with 4G’s much higher speeds, users may find themselves sending and receiving more data more often, and thus breaching the limits more regularly. For instance, in my tests, I was easily able to download a nearly 600 megabyte TV show, something I wouldn’t even try with a 3G modem. That one download would have eaten up more than 10% of my monthly cap under the $50 plan.

Verizon’s first LTE laptop modem, the LG VL600, has a flip top that reveals the USB connector.

Verizon’s variant of 4G uses a different underlying technology than Sprint’s. It’s called LTE, for Long Term Evolution, and is also the 4G system being adopted by many other cellular operators around the world, including AT&T. (Technically, this first version of LTE isn’t considered true 4G by the engineering standards body that rules on such matters, but that makes little difference to consumers looking for faster connections.)

The company says it chose LTE because it is not only fast, but is less prone to interference, can provide better battery life, has less latency, or lag, and can better handle multiple users simultaneously. The LTE system doesn’t affect voice calls on Verizon’s network—it’s only for data, and operates in tandem with the current voice network.

Verizon claims its new network is up to 10 times faster than its 3G network and says consumers will see speeds of between 5 and 12 megabits per second for downloads and between 2 and 5 mbps for uploads, in “real-world, loaded network environments.”

As of this writing, Verizon doesn’t offer an actual LTE-capable smart phone, only LTE USB modems that plug into laptops. But the company is expected to offer a sneak peek at CES this week of several LTE phones that will roll out in the coming months, as well other planned LTE devices, from a variety of manufacturers. Again, I want to stress that your current Verizon phone or laptop modem can’t be upgraded to work with LTE. You’ll need a new one.

For my tests, I used Verizon’s first LTE laptop modem, the VL600 made by LG of Korea. It sells for $100 after a $50 mail-in rebate with a two-year service contract. This modem can handle data over slower 3G networks, if you happen to stray out of one of Verizon’s 4G service areas. For now, it works only on computers running Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7. But the company says it should have Mac-compatible LTE modems in a month or so.

To use it, you have to first install, from an included CD, a new version of Verizon’s cellular modem software, VZAccess Manager. Older versions won’t work. My test machine was a Lenovo ThinkPad X301, which worked fine with a Verizon 3G modem. Installation was relatively quick and smooth, though I was immediately instructed to download an updated version of the software, so I had to go through it twice.

I disabled Wi-Fi on the ThinkPad, plugged in the LTE modem and ran 10 tests using the popular Speedtest.net website. The results were impressive. Verizon’s 4G network averaged just a shade under 16 megabits per second for downloads and 6.6 mbps for uploads. That was 15 times the download speed, and 13 times the upload speed, of a Verizon 3G modem I tested immediately afterward using the same method in the same location.

To relate these speeds to real-world scenarios, I downloaded from iTunes a standard-definition episode of the TV show “The Good Wife”—a 588 megabyte file—in just seven minutes, instead of the two hours or so iTunes predicted it would take when I was using the 3G modem. I streamed several long videos, including two in HD, from the Web, and they played smooth as silk.

But there are caveats. For one thing, hardly anyone is using this new Verizon network yet, and it’s likely to slow down as it gets crowded, especially with smart-phone users. Secondly, laptop cellular modems typically deliver faster speeds than phones, so my results don’t necessarily predict phone or tablet performance.

Also, speeds can vary by city and distance. My tests were mainly conducted against a server in my local D.C. area. But I also tried a few tests against a server in San Francisco and only got about 6 mbps download—within Verizon’s claims, but much slower.

Still, if you can afford it, and if it works well in phones and tablets, Verizon’s new LTE network could be a great boon to your digital lifestyle.

Find all Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos at the All Things Digital website, allthingsd.com.

Sprint 4G Phone Hits New Speeds, but Battery Lags

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 20 May 2010 01:37:06 +0000

The major wireless phone companies have begun building out the next generation of cellular phone systems, called 4G, or fourth-generation, networks. These networks are designed to offer much faster data speeds than the current speediest networks, which are called 3G.

Sprint is leading this race. Its 4G network already is available in 32 cities, and the company plans to add at least 14 more by year end.

[ See post to watch video ]

Now, Sprint (S) is preparing to release the first 4G-capable phone in the U.S. on June 4. I’ve been testing it for about a week in two cities: Baltimore, where Sprint has fully rolled out 4G, and Washington, D.C., where it is in the process of doing so.

This new phone, which also works on Sprint’s 3G network, is called the EVO 4G. It runs Google’s (GOOG) Android operating system and is built by HTC, based in Taiwan. It will cost $200 after a $100 mail-in rebate, with a two-year contract. Monthly fees will start at $80 for unlimited data and text messages, 450 talk minutes, and free calls to any mobile phone on any network. That’s a $10 hike from Sprint’s comparable plan for 3G phones.

My verdict: The HTC EVO 4G, when used on Sprint’s 4G network, offers the highest consistent downstream data speeds I have ever seen on a cellular network. It also has a number of other strong features: a front-facing camera for video chatting, and the ability to serve as a Wi-Fi hotspot (for an extra fee of $30 a month) that can simultaneously connect up to eight laptops or other devices to the Internet.

However, the data speeds I got in my tests weren’t spectacular, or anywhere close to the typical maximum Sprint claims, even in Baltimore, where the company’s 4G network is mature. And, when using 4G, the EVO’s battery runs down alarmingly fast. In my tests, it didn’t last through a full day with 4G turned on. The carrier, in fact, is thinking of advising users to turn off the 4G network access when they don’t think they need it, to save battery life. This undercuts the whole idea of faster cellular speeds.

Sprint’s HTC EVO 4G cellphone

In addition, the 4G advantage isn’t yet available in most cities. And the phone is heavy. Also, like other Android phones, it has limited storage for third-party apps—just 358 megabytes of total memory capacity of 9 gigabytes.

The phone itself is physically similar to T-Mobile’s HD2, a 3G phone also built by HTC. Like the HD2, it has a larger screen than on other smart phones—4.3 inches measured diagonally versus the more typical 3.5 or 3.7 inches. That makes the EVO, like the HD2, bulkier and heavier than most competitors.

However, in addition to its greater speed due to 4G, the EVO has several other features the HD2 lacks. Notably, it has that front-facing camera, the ability to connect to a big-screen TV using a modern connector port called HDMI, and a built-in kickstand to keep it upright for video viewing. In addition, because it runs Android and not the creaky Windows Mobile software used by the HD2, the EVO offers a much cleaner interface and many more available apps.

But the big deal about the EVO is that it can handle 4G, and I focused my tests on this.

Sprint claims that average users will see downstream data speeds of between 3 and 6 megabits per second on the EVO when 4G is in use. In my tests, in the heart of Baltimore’s popular Inner Harbor district, I averaged 3.4 mbps downstream over 4G, and just under 1 mbps upstream (the upstream speed is capped by Sprint at 1 mbps.) That downstream speed was double the EVO’s speed when using 3G, and the upstream speed was about triple.

In D.C., where the Sprint 4G network is still being completed and tuned, downstream streams varied widely, from under 1 mbps to a high of around 4 mbps.

The EVO was much faster than an iPhone using AT&T’s (T) network, which in Baltimore never got to even 1 mbps downstream and in D.C. averaged about 1.8 mbps. Verizon’s (VZ) new Droid Incredible, another HTC Android phone, did well in both cities, averaging about 2 mbps downstream, but that was still slower than the EVO.

Sprint explains I never saw anything close to its top claimed speed by pointing out that both cellular reception and test methods can vary greatly, and that my sample was small.

I tested other features successfully. I used the EVO to provide Internet connectivity to a Lenovo ThinkPad and an Apple (AAPL) MacBook laptop simultaneously, and both performed speedily. I also could view photos and videos on my TV by connecting the EVO with a special cable. But I couldn’t test the video-chatting feature because the necessary software wasn’t ready yet.

If you are hungry for more cellular data speed, and live in a current 4G Sprint city, the EVO may be just what you need, as long as you’re prepared for short battery life.

See a video with Walt Mossberg on Sprint’s new 4G phone at WSJ.com/PersonalTech. Find all of Walt’s columns and videos at walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Who Will Buy Palm? If Not HTC, How About HP?

John Paczkowski — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 15:34:59 +0000

Well, this is a bit ironic, coming as it does on the heels of Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein’s “I believe Palm can survive as an independent company” proclamation Thursday: HTC has reportedly declined to bid on the company, which is said to be shopping itself around.

Evidently the Taiwanese hardware manufacturer took one look at Palm’s (PALM) books and decided an acquisition isn’t worth the trouble. “There just weren’t enough synergies to take the deal forward,” a source close to talks between the two companies told Reuters.

And so speculation about a potential acquirer is turning elsewhere. Lenovo seems to be the leading candidate at the moment. The company has big aspirations in China’s mobile market and a penchant for making big foreign acquisitions. It purchased IBM’s (IBM) ThinkPad business a few years back and tried to buy Packard Bell, so why not Palm?

Well, for one thing, Palm’s market share is too small to be of real benefit to Lenovo. For another, the company is already committed to Google’s (GOOG) Android for the OS to run on its soon-to-debut Lephone.

Finally, Palm’s asking price is said to be around $1.3 billion. Lenovo had about $2.4 billion in net cash reserves on hand the end of 2009. Would Lenovo really spend more than half of that on Palm, a company whose books frightened off HTC? As Larry Dignan writes at ZDNet, it’s hard to make the case that it should.

So if not Lenovo, then who?

How about Hewlett-Packard (HPQ)? With handheld sales that fell by more than half year-over-year in its first quarter, HP is surely looking for a way to revive them and capture a larger portion of the important mobile market. Acquiring Palm could be a good way to do it. Here’s why:

Yes, HP is a Windows shop with, no doubt, big plans for Windows Phone 7, but that OS will likely figure in devices aimed at the enterprise market. With Palm’s assets, HP could target the consumer space as well.
Palm’s webOS is scalable. HP could use it in other devices–tablets, for example–differentiating them from those of competitors using open-source operating systems like Android.
In Palm, HP would gain a turnkey smartphone division–a venture with a slick smartphone OS, a deep mobile patent portfolio, a talented R&D team, the beginnings of an app ecosystem and established carrier relationships.
Palm and HP both call Silicon Valley home, and former Palm exec Todd Bradley currently heads up HP’s Personal Systems Group. Obviously, there would still be integration risks, but there are clear synergies in culture and location that would at least temper them a bit.
HP has some $14 billion in cash on hand, more than enough to cover Palm’s rumored $1.3 billion asking price with plenty left over.

That seems to me to be a pretty compelling case. Has it been made inside HP? I can’t say for sure, though we may find out in the weeks ahead.

Using the iPad as a Standalone Device

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 21:42:40 +0000

Can the iPad can be used totally on its own, or must you sync it with another computer? If I bought an iPad for my grandmother, who has no other computer, would she be able to just download apps and music and rent movies solely via the iTunes Store on the iPad?

Yes, but with a catch. Based on what Apple (AAPL) has said, iPad owners will be able to buy apps, music and books, and buy and rent video, right on the device, without requiring a PC or Mac running iTunes software. You can also synchronize contacts, email and calendar items over the air, from an online source, instead of over a cable from your computer.

However, Apple’s Web site suggests you’ll need to connect to a computer running iTunes in order to back up the iPad, and, if the iPhone is any guide, you will likely need to do the same to upgrade the iPad’s operating system whenever Apple updates it.

I enjoyed your article on the two new Lenovo computers you’ve tested. The ThinkPad Edge sounds like a machine that will suit my needs quite well. You mentioned in the article that the machine you tested was upgraded from the base model. What were the specifications of your test machine?

The $799 model I tested differs from the $579 base model by having a more powerful Intel (INTC) processor; 4 gigabytes of memory instead of 2 gigabytes; a 320-gigabyte hard disk versus 250 gigabytes; a different graphics card and a higher-capacity battery. Full specs are in the left-hand column on this Web page: http://bit.ly/7jNBcw.

In your column of March 18, you gave the advice: “There are easier ways to erase all cookies, by using a function in your Web browser.” How do you do this?

In Internet Explorer 8, select the Safety menu, choose “Delete Browsing History,” uncheck everything but “Cookies,” and click “Delete.” In Firefox 3.6, select the Tools menu, and then “Clear Recent History.” Then click “Details,” uncheck everything but “Cookies,” and pick “Everything” from the time range list.

In Safari 4.0, go to Preferences, then “Security,” then “Show Cookies,” then choose “Remove All.”

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online, free of charge, at the All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at walt.mossberg@wsj.com.

Weekend Update 3/20/10–The Broadband Plan Edition

Beth Callaghan — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 03:13:25 +0000

BoomTown traveled to Washington, D.C., this week for festivities surrounding the 25th anniversary of the registration of the first .com domain name, and while in our nation’s capital–in addition to lugging a giant binder containing a paper printout of the National Broadband Plan to various historic spots for educational opportunities–dropped in on Blair Levin, executive director of the plan and former FCC exec. Levin shared his thoughts about the scope of the plan and some of the challenges it faces on the way to implementation. Elsewhere, at an event for the .com domain anniversary, former President Bill Clinton gave a keynote that focused, naturally, on health care and global warming. He made up for it, apparently, when he sat down with VeriSign (VRSN) CEO Mark McLaughlin for an entertaining interview. Of course, Clinton probably wasn’t as entertaining as Kathy Griffin–Kara also attended a dinner honoring the star of “My Life on the D List” at which Griffin shared some R-rated Twitter action words.

The release this week of a flood of documents pertaining to the Viacom (VIA)-YouTube lawsuit shed light on a lot of interesting data–and a lot of, uh, not-so-interesting stuff. Peter Kafka was on duty this week to discern the difference, so you don’t have to. Among the highlights: YouTube’s pre-Google finances revealed, how YouTube split up Google’s (GOOG) billions, proof that Viacom wanted to buy YouTube four years ago, and a whole lot of emails, but no smoking gun. It’s all on MediaMemo.

Over at Digital Daily, John Paczkowski wondered if the licensing of its webOS could be a salvation for Palm (PALM), and later in the week, whether Palm’s dismal third-quarter earnings mean the beginning of the end. John also reported that given details revealed Monday morning, Windows Phone 7 could make Microsoft (MSFT) a contender in the mobile operating system wars. Microsoft isn’t the only company having a good month, however–Mac sales during February were up 43 percent for the month, after a 36 percent spike in sales during January. Accordingly, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has declared 2010 the “Year of the Mac.”

In Personal Technology this week, Walt took a look at two new ThinkPads from Lenovo. A departure from Lenovo’s standard template, they sport lower prices and new designs, and both got good grades. Watch the video of Walt’s comprehensive review and then check out his appearance on WSJ’s “Digits” for more on the new ThinkPads and a discussion of Google’s upcoming foray into television. At Mossberg’s Mailbox, Walt answered readers’ questions about sharing e-books and wiping hard drives. And in the Mossberg Solution, Katie Boehret tested Xobni Mobile, an app that generates contact info for everyone users have ever communicated with in Microsoft Outlook. So far Xobni is available for BlackBerry only, but word is, the company’s considering apps for Android and the iPhone.

More next week.

More on ThinkPad's New Suit and Google's TV Push

Walt Mossberg — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 19:16:26 +0000

On Digits today, Walt explains Lenovo’s attempt to broaden ThinkPad’s brand appeal with its launch of two new laptop designs, which include a revamped keyboard.

[ See post to watch video ]

He also discusses Google’s lineup of big parters–Sony, Intel and Logitech–for its upcoming foray into the living room.

[ See post to watch video ]

Lenovo Rethinks Design and Price of the ThinkPad

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 01:12:32 +0000

Lenovo is rethinking the ThinkPad.

For years, the iconic laptop brand, originally created by IBM, has been known for solid construction and great keyboards, but with a boxy black design and relatively high prices. It has a business orientation, though it also has been the choice of some tech-savvy consumers willing to pay a little more and forego flashy style touches.

[ See post to watch video ]

IBM (IBM) and Lenovo, a Chinese-owned company that bought the brand in 2005, have at times been bold with the ThinkPad’s engineering. For instance, in 2008, Lenovo launched a very thin but full-width line, the X300 series, which uses cutting-edge materials and goes to head-to-head with Apple’s (AAPL) ultrathin MacBook Air.

But Lenovo has been reluctant to tinker much with the ThinkPad’s design. It has retained the classic but boring black-box look and preserved the solid, comfortable keyboard.

Now, to broaden the brand’s appeal, the company has decided to depart from that template. It has just launched two new ThinkPads at uncharacteristically low prices, with new designs, sizes and colors, and—shudder—a revamped keyboard.

I’ve been testing the two new models, and, in general, I like them. They are the least expensive ThinkPads ever offered, and the first available in a color choice other than black. Each can be ordered in red as well. Also, one is the first ThinkPad in years that is a mini-notebook, rather than a full-size laptop.

Lenovo’s new ThinkPad X100e.

One of these two new models, the X100e, is a small, netbook-like machine with an 11.6-inch screen—starting at $449, though the upgraded configuration I reviewed costs $599. The company refuses to call the X100e a netbook. Its keyboard, screen and resolution are better than what many netbooks offer, but it’s also heavier.

The other new line is called the ThinkPad Edge. It’s a full-size machine, with a 13.3-inch screen, that is more rounded than traditional ThinkPads, and has a silvery band around its edges. It starts at $579, though the step-up configuration I reviewed costs $799.

Both machines retain the solid feel of a ThinkPad. Neither is the lightest computer in its size class, though they’re not overly heavy. The little X100e weighs 3.3 pounds and the Edge weighs 3.6 pounds with its base battery, and 3.9 pounds with a larger battery.

And both retain a classic ThinkPad feature—the TrackPoint, a small red nub in the middle of the keyboard that can be used to move the cursor. It is an alternative to the touchpad that each machine also includes.

In my tests, both new ThinkPads proved snappy, though neither has the latest or most potent processors. Both ran Windows 7 fine, and handled well a variety of popular software—Microsoft Office, Firefox, iTunes and Adobe Reader. One caveat: The test units Lenovo sent me had twice the standard memory of base models. And my test Edge had a more powerful processor.

Under my tough battery test, where I turn off power-saving software, keep Wi-Fi on, set the screen at maximum brightness, and play a continuous loop of music, the X100e’s battery lasted 3 hours and 44 minutes. In normal use, you could likely get 4½ hours or more.

The Edge had a battery time of 4 hours and 16 minutes, so you could likely get over 5 hours in normal use. But the costlier Edge configuration I tested had a larger battery than the base unit, so would likely last only two-thirds as long.

Start-up times on the two were respectable for a Windows PC: ready to go from cold start in just over a minute. The touchpads on both also feature multitouch gestures, like the ability to use your fingers to resize or rotate photos.

What about the new keyboards? Instead of the closely packed, large, scooped keys that ThinkPad loyalists love, the X100e and Edge have “island-style” keyboards, with distinctly separated, flatter-looking letter and number keys. The Backspace, Shift, Enter and Tab keys are large and prominent. Lenovo eliminated the little-used SysReq, Scroll Lock and Pause keys.

I found the letter and number keys to be comfortable, accurate and fast, with a solid, reliable feel—even on the smaller X100e. Lenovo explains this is because the letter and number key tops aren’t really flat, but have the same curve as the tops of classic ThinkPad keys.

But the new keyboard has compromises. On the Edge, the Delete key was too small and insufficiently prominent. On both devices, the Home, End, Page Up and Page Down keys are far apart, and the latter two are tiny and hard to press, especially on the Edge. The Num Lock key and virtual numeric keyboard are gone.

All in all, ThinkPad lovers looking to save money, and other PC users considering a ThinkPad, might find these new models worth a try.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free of charge, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

How to Watch Video, Wirelessly, on Your TV Set

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 02:03:34 +0000

An increasing number of people are watching video, including TV shows and movies, on their computers, instead of via traditional TV sets.

Many young people don’t even bother with a cable or satellite subscription and just use their PCs or Macs to get their video fix.

[ See post to watch video ]

But computer screens are small, so some folks hook the computer up to the TV for their viewing sessions. The problem with this is that it can be complicated for the technically challenged. And it can involve long cables stretching across the floor, or leaving a computer you might want for other tasks permanently connected to the TV. So companies have been working on ways to beam Internet video wirelessly from your computer to your TV.

I’ve been testing two of these wireless PC-to-TV solutions. Both require a secondary device that remains connected to the TV to receive the wireless signal from the computer.

One product is a new system from Intel (INTC), several major laptop makers and the networking equipment company Netgear (NTGR). It’s called Intel Wireless Display, or Wi-Di for short. The other is a software product called PlayOn, from a company called MediaMall. It beams video to your TV through popular game consoles such as Microsoft’s (MSFT) Xbox 360, Sony’s (SNE) PlayStation 3 and Nintendo’s Wii. Both of these products only work on Windows computers.

In my tests, both systems mostly worked as advertised, but each had some downsides. The Intel system works with any video from any site you can play on the computer, but the video disappears from the TV if you are playing it in full-screen mode and get the impulse to use the computer for any other purpose while it is playing. And it only works on a handful of new, specially equipped PCs.

The PlayOn system will work on an existing computer, and it keeps showing a video even if you choose to use the PC for some other task. But it can’t beam just any old video to the TV, only those from services PlayOn has enabled. For instance, you can watch TV shows and movies from Hulu (partly owned by News Corp., which also owns The Wall Street Journal and its Web sites) but not from your favorite random Web site.

Intel’s new Wi-Di system is so far only available on three specific laptop models, one each from Toshiba, Sony and Dell (DELL), that range from $900 to $1,050. And these laptops are so far only available from Best Buy (BBY). It also requires a small $100 adapter called Push2TV from Netgear, which comes free with these laptops.

Wi-Di requires computers equipped with Intel’s brand new 2010 Core processors, Intel’s graphics chips and Intel’s wireless chips. Netgear and Intel say the feature will be available on other PC models later in the year.

I tested Wi-Di with the $900 Toshiba E205, a capable laptop with a 14-inch screen. Setup was a breeze. I just plugged the Netgear box into my TV and pushed a special Wi-Di button on the Toshiba. I typed in a code number the first time I used it, and I was in business.

Instantly, anything showing on the Toshiba’s screen was wirelessly replicated on the TV screen, even though I was eight feet away.

I tested the system with YouTube, Hulu and many other Web sites with no hitches or glitches. I also played videos stored on the PC’s hard disk.

Video mostly played smoothly over Wi-Di, though the quality on the TV was a bit degraded from that on the laptop screen, and HD videos didn’t look nearly as good as normal HD TV broadcasts. Also, the system isn’t satisfying unless you are streaming a video that can be viewed in full-screen mode on the PC.

I tested PlayOn with a Lenovo ThinkPad laptop and a PlayStation 3. After hooking up the PS3, I installed the $40 PlayOn software, which runs in the background. I then navigated to the Video section of the Sony’s menu, found PlayOn listed and used the Sony’s remote control to select from supported services, which include YouTube, Hulu, Netflix (NFLX), CBS.com (CBS), Amazon (AMZN) Video on Demand, CNN.com,and ESPN.com.

PlayOn also allows third-party plug-ins to add other Web video sources, such as NBC.com, but the company admits that the plug-in process can be clunky.

Video quality was about the same on PlayOn as on Wi-Di, and most programs played smoothly. With PlayOn, you don’t see the actual Web site, and you’re limited to the navigation system and options of the game console you’re using. So, I had to tediously find shows on the Sony by trolling through long lists.

PlayOn failed to display videos and photos stored on my PC, though to be fair the company lists this as a beta feature. And it displayed brief error messages frequently, even when it proceeded to play my chosen video properly.

PlayOn costs $40, and can be downloaded from www.playon.tv. You also must own or buy a game console, or one of a smattering of less- well-known TV adapters that the system supports.

Watching Internet video is a better experience with no wires to get in the way. But it can cost a lot, and needs some work.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Netbooks Come Into Their Own

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 02:10:04 +0000

Somewhere between the laptop and the smart phone, the computer industry has long believed there could be a small, low-cost device that would please consumers and sell well.

The device would be more versatile than, say, an iPhone, but much cheaper and more portable than, say, a ThinkPad. The trouble is, every attempt to create such a category of computer has met with failure — until now.

This year, that in-between type of computer now called a “netbook” has finally caught on. Since I reviewed a pioneering model, the 7-inch, $300 Asus Eee PC back in January, the market has been flooded with new and better, if somewhat more expensive, netbook models. Nearly every company — from big names such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard, to obscure ones like MSI — has jumped into the fray.

[ See post to watch video ]

Netbooks still constitute a smaller niche than laptops and the exploding smart phone, or hand-held computer, category. But they are threatening to break into the mainstream in a big way, especially in an economic climate where a low price and fewer bells and whistles are suddenly more attractive.

They are much more portable than most standard laptops. They are easier to use on a plane or carry around town. And they are way cheaper, between $300 and $500, than the very lightest, thinnest standard laptops, which often top $1,000.

Compared with even an amazingly powerful pocket device, like the iPhone, the Google (GOOG) G1, or the forthcoming BlackBerry Storm, a netbook, at about twice the price, offers a much larger keyboard and screen. And they can run far more sophisticated software and perform a much wider variety of computing tasks.

But netbooks come with serious compromises. While they are great for light use on the go, their cramped screens and keyboards, and slow processors, make them much less potent and less comfortable to use than even a so-called ultraportable laptop. And, as small as they are, they can’t fit in a pocket like smart phones can, be as easily used as a still camera, or function as a cellphone.

Netbooks aren’t tablets. They look and act like regular clamshell-style laptops with keyboards and track pads, but are much smaller. Most current models have 8.9-inch screens, though some now sport 10-inch displays. Dell (DELL) is even planning soon to launch a netbook with a 12-inch screen for around $600, which will blur the line with traditional laptops, some of which can be bought for less with larger displays.

Compared with sleek, thin, but much costlier notebooks, such as the Apple (AAPL) MacBook Air or the Lenovo ThinkPad X300, the netbooks of today are stubbier and chunkier. But they take up much less room on an airline tray table. When the person in front of you reclines, you can happily keep using them, because their screens are so much smaller and extend upward so much less.

The early netbook models relied on the unfamiliar and somewhat geeky Linux operating system, and most still offer it as an option. But many now also can be purchased with Windows XP, with which consumers are far more experienced, and which can run many more well-known programs.

At the start of this year, most netbooks lacked hard disks, instead offering very limited storage via memory chips — often less storage than a $199 iPhone. They were pitched as limited devices mainly meant for using the Internet — thus the name “netbook” — and their makers assumed users mainly would use Web-based applications.

Now, many offer decent-size hard disks and include serious programs, such as Microsoft (MSFT) Office or Microsoft Works. But none offers a built-in DVD drive, which makes it hard to install some new software.

To offer readers a feel for today’s netbooks, I selected four representative models to test and review. I am not declaring these four as the best on the market, nor do I mean to slight makers like H-P, whose entries aren’t included in this review. The truth is, there are far more similarities than differences among competing netbooks that might make one model stand out from the others.

All four of the models I tested use Intel’s new low-power Atom processor. All have decent screen resolution — much better than the original Asus. But none can display a full Web page, or even most of a Web page, without scrolling. Each has three USB ports.

Three of the four have good battery life, but getting good power in most models means using a larger battery that adds weight and bulk.

All of my test models ran XP, not Linux, because I believe that’s the better choice for average consumers.

Here are minireviews of these four netbooks.

Acer Aspire One: The $349 blue Acer One weighs a little over two pounds with its standard battery, and has a bright, sharp 8.9-inch screen. It comes with a 120-gigabyte hard disk and 1 gigabyte of memory. It’s a little over an inch thick, and its footprint is much smaller than that of a standard sheet of paper.

As on all the other models, I tried a word processor, either Microsoft Word or Works, and several popular non-Microsoft programs: Adobe Reader, Apple’s iTunes and Mozilla’s Firefox browser. The Acer handled all of them well, though, as with all the other netbooks I tried, its speakers are mediocre.

The Acer’s small keyboard is very nicely done. Its keys are large enough, and separated and sculpted enough, to make typing comfortable and accurate, though I wouldn’t want to write a novel on it.

But the Acer has two big drawbacks. Its battery life is miserable. On my tough battery test, where I turn off all power-saving features, crank up the screen brightness, turn on the Wi-Fi, and play a continuous loop of music, it couldn’t even squeeze out two hours. In normal use, that might mean 2½ hours. To fix that problem, you can spend $50 more on a version with a double-size battery, at the cost of added weight and bulk. This costlier version also boosts the hard disk to 160 gigabytes.

The other problem, which can’t be fixed with any factory options, is that the Acer One has a terrible track pad. It’s too cramped vertically for comfortable use, and the buttons, which are mere slivers, are arranged on the sides instead of below the pad. Moving the cursor or selecting text is awkward and inaccurate.

Lesser problems are that the Acer includes only the older, slower, “G” flavor of Wi-Fi and a low-resolution Webcam.

The Dell Mini 9 has an 8.9-inch screen, is compact and has a big battery, but it lacks a hard disk and offers just 8 gigabytes of flash memory.

Dell Mini 9: Like the less costly Acer, the $399 Dell Mini has an 8.9-inch screen, but it’s a bit narrower horizontally. Its standard battery is larger, making it slightly heavier but still very light.

The Dell is a throwback to the older concept of netbooks. It lacks a hard disk and offers just 8 gigabytes of flash memory, plus 2 gigabytes of free online storage. It has just half a gigabyte of memory. For extra money, you can double the flash storage and memory.

Because of its bigger battery, and its lack of a power-sucking hard disk, the Dell beat the Acer handily in my battery test, getting just under three hours, which means that, in normal use, you would likely see four hours.

The Dell has the same wimpy Wi-Fi and Webcam as the Acer. But its track pad, while small, is much larger vertically and easier to use, with buttons where you expect to find them. It ran all my test software OK.

However, the Dell had by far the worst keyboard in my test group. Because of its compact width, the tab, arrow and other keys are squeezed to a ridiculously narrow size that impedes typing.

MSI Wind U100: This is a $399 machine (after a recent price cut) with a 10-inch screen, and comes from a Taiwan company better known in the U.S. for making computer components than entire computers. The model I tested, with a double-size battery, is $429. My test unit was white, weighed a tad over three pounds, and had 1 gigabyte of memory and a 160-gigabyte hard disk.

Despite the larger screen, the Wind still fits very well on a cramped airline tray, and it has a well-designed keyboard. It comes with a button that can slow down or speed up the processor to save battery life or add oomph. And there’s a function that can magnify portions of text.

It has a standard, decent Webcam and can use the newest “N” flavor of Wi-Fi. It ran all my test software just fine.

With my test model’s bigger battery, which protrudes from the bottom, the Wind did very well on my test at its standard processor speed, lasting three hours and 37 minutes. That suggests you could get four to five hours in normal use. Presumably, the standard model with the smaller battery would get half of that life, though you could stretch it by stepping down the processor speed.

Overall, I liked the MSI Wind a lot. My only real gripe is that the track pad is small and has only a single thin button, which performs a left or right click. This button is too small and sluggish for optimal use.

Asus Eee 1000H: Asus, another Taiwan company known as a component maker, is the king of netbooks. In fact, it has so many different, and frequently changing, netbook models that its product lineup can be a blur. The one I tested has a 10-inch screen and costs $475, making it the costliest netbook in this group. It’s also the heaviest, edging out my test Wind slightly.

Like the Wind, my Eee 1000H had a large battery that protruded from the bottom. It doesn’t come with a smaller battery. Also like the Wind, it has a standard Webcam, the faster “N” Wi-Fi, and a 160-gigabyte hard disk with 1 gigabyte of memory.

The keyboard on the 1000H was the best of this lot, with well-designed keys. It also had the roomiest and most functional track pad, though its buttons — integrated with a metal border around the track pad — took some getting used to.

The Asus, like the Wind, has the capability to tweak the speed of its processor. It also has a button that can change the screen resolution, though I found that the nonstandard resolutions looked distorted.

In my battery test, at its standard processor speed, the 1000H got three hours and 32 minutes, suggesting that in normal use it could deliver between four and five hours — more if you use the lower processor speed.

The Asus handled all my test software well. It comes with a greater variety of built-in programs than the others and offers 20 gigabytes of free online storage.

Bottom line: If you want a machine for light use, a light price and a light weight, a netbook is waiting and is worth a try. Just don’t expect the same experience as on a standard laptop or the convenience of a smart phone.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

First Test of Google's New Browser

Walter S. Mossberg — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 19:01:08 +0000

Google has introduced a new Web browser, called Chrome, aimed at wresting dominance of the browser market from Microsoft‘s Internet Explorer. The move takes the Google-Microsoft rivalry to a whole new level. If Google succeeds, it will be a big deal, with major ramifications for the future of the Web.

But just how good is Chrome? How does it differ from IE and from less popular, but still important, browsers like Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple‘s Safari?

I’ve been testing Chrome for about a week, trying out all its features and using it side by side with Microsoft’s latest iteration of IE, which came out just last week.

[ See post to watch video ]

My verdict: Chrome is a smart, innovative browser that, in many common scenarios, will make using the Web faster, easier and less frustrating. But this first version — which is just a beta, or test, release — is rough around the edges and lacks some common browser features Google plans to add later. These omissions include a way to manage bookmarks, a command for emailing links and pages directly from the browser, and even a progress bar to show how much of a Web page has loaded.

Chrome’s interface has some bold changes from the standard browser design. These new features enhance the Web experience, but they will require some adjustment on the part of users. For instance, Chrome does away with most menus and toolbar icons to give maximum screen space for the Web pages themselves. Also, Google has merged the address bar, where you type in Web addresses, with the search box, where you type in search terms. This unified feature is called the Omnibox.

One striking difference in Chrome is how it handles tabs, which display a single Web page. In Chrome, each tab behaves as a separate browser. The bookmarks bar, Omnibox, menus and toolbar icons are located inside the tab, rather than atop the entire browser. The tabs appear at the top of the computer screen. Chrome also groups related tabs. If you open a new tab from a link in a page that’s already open, that new tab appears next to the originating page, rather than at the end of the row of tabs.

Despite Google’s claims that Chrome is fast, it was notably slower in my tests at the common task of launching Web pages than either Firefox or Safari. However, it proved faster than the latest version of IE — also a beta version — called IE8.

Meanwhile, Microsoft hasn’t been sitting still. The second beta version of IE8 is the best edition of Internet Explorer in years. It is packed with new features of its own, some of which are similar to those in Chrome, and some of which, in my view, top Chrome’s features.

Google’s Chrome browser displays thumbnails of a user’s most-visited pages when a new tab is opened, rather than a blank page.

For example, while IE8 also groups related tabs, it assigns a different color to each such tab group and allows you to close them all with one click. It has a “smart” address box of its own, that drops down a list of suggestions as you type, though it retains a separate search box.

IE8 also has breakthrough privacy features that exceed Chrome’s, and includes a new technology called Accelerators, which allows you to take rapid action on any selected word or phrase on a Web page, such as generating a map for a place name, without switching to a new page.

As they develop, each of these browsers has a good chance of besting Firefox 3.0, which I have regarded as the best Web browser for Windows, the only operating system on which Chrome currently runs. But they will have to get faster at loading pages. And, to best Firefox on the Macintosh, Google will have to make good on its promise to produce a Mac version of Chrome, something it says it will do in the coming months. Microsoft has no plans to produce a Mac version of IE8.

Chrome and IE8 are far more advanced than Apple’s Safari. Safari is speedy on both Mac and Windows platforms, but lacks many of the key intelligent features of its newer Google and Microsoft rivals.

Why is Google igniting a new browser war? There are two main reasons, and both involve competing with Microsoft. First, the search giant fears that because its search engine and other major products depend on the browser, Microsoft — with its rival online products — might be able to gain an advantage by altering the design of IE, which has roughly a 75% market share.

Second, and more important, Google sees the Web as a platform for the software programs, or applications, that currently run directly on computer operating systems, notably Microsoft’s Windows. It says current browsers lack the underlying architecture to enable future, more powerful Web applications that will rely more heavily on a common Web programming language called JavaScript. Chrome was designed to be the world’s speediest browser at handling JavaScript.

That move might one day make Chrome a sort of online operating system that competes with Windows. “Think of Chrome as more than a simple Web browser,” Google declares. “It’s a platform for running Web applications.”

Microsoft’s IE8 has an “Accelerator” feature that lets users select any Web text and then map, translate, search or email their selection without leaving the page.

I tested Chrome, and IE8, on a plain-vanilla Lenovo ThinkPad laptop running Windows XP, and equipped with a modest processor and one gigabyte of memory.

To gauge Chrome’s speed at loading Web pages, I launched two large groups of typical Web pages simultaneously, each site opening in its own tab. One group included 15 sports sites, the second 19 news sites. In both tests, Chrome’s speed fell in the middle, at 35 and 44 seconds, respectively. IE8 was slower, taking 49 and 75 seconds to open the two groups of sites. But Firefox and Safari were much faster, notching identical speeds of 19 seconds for the 15 sites and 28 seconds for the 19 sites.

Google claims that future, more sophisticated Web applications relying more heavily on JavaScript than today’s sites do would run faster on Chrome. Of course, I couldn’t test any claim about future scenarios, but I did run Chrome on several JavaScript test sites, used by developers. It handily beat the other browsers. However, Google doesn’t claim users would see much difference on current Web application sites.

I also tested Chrome’s compatibility with scores of common Web sites. In general, it did well, rendering the sites properly. But I ran into problems with video. Some video sites refused to recognize Chrome, because its development has been a secret. On others, like Major League Baseball’s site, videos mostly played properly, but sometimes didn’t.

IE8 also has some compatibility issues, for different reasons. It’s the first version of Internet Explorer to hew closely to Web standards. Earlier versions used some nonstandard ways of rendering Web sites, prompting some site designers to adopt techniques that made their pages work in IE, but look odd in Firefox and Safari. Now, ironically, these pages also look strange in IE8. So Microsoft was forced to build in a special Compatibility View button that users must click to see the sites properly.

Chrome is built on three core design principles. The first is its spare user interface: just two menus and a handful of toolbar icons. IE introduced a similar approach in its version 7, but with a difference. Microsoft allows users to restore a traditional menu bar; Google doesn’t. The only toolbar icon you can add in Chrome is a Home button.

The second principle is that a user can type anything into a single place, the Omnibox, and instantly get suggestions on where to go, gleaned from the user’s own browsing history and Google’s rankings of popular sites. Whether you type in a Web address or a search term, the Omnibox is very smart. In my tests, it sometimes came up with the right destination after I typed only one or two letters of the name of a site I often visited.

The Omnibox has another cool feature: Tab-to-Search. If you type in the name of another site that includes its own search feature, like Amazon.com, the Omnibox lets you just press the tab key to search within that site, without opening it first. Chrome, through its Options settings, also lets you change the default search engine used by the Omnibox. Instead of Google’s own search service, you can use Microsoft’s Live search, Yahoo search, or others.

The third big principle behind Chrome is that each tab runs, under the hood, as a separate browser. Tabs can be dragged off the main browser and turned into separate windows. If one tab crashes, the rest of the browser keeps running. But this doesn’t work perfectly. In my tests, all of Chrome died on me when I tried watching an Olympics video on the NBC site.

You can even make a tab a standalone application that runs from the Start Menu, or the desktop, as if it was a separate program.

Chrome has a few other key features. When you open a new tab, you don’t get a blank page, but a set of thumbnails for your most-visited pages, plus lists of recent search engines you’ve used, recently used bookmarks and recently closed tabs.

Like other browsers, Chrome puts up a warning when you try to visit a malicious or phony Web site, and it has a private browsing mode, called Incognito, which allows you to browse without leaving any history on your computer — a feature popularized in Safari.

Chrome also has a pop-up blocker, but it’s annoying because it flashes a notice that a pop-up has been blocked. IE also does this, but unlike in Chrome, the warnings are much less intrusive.

Internet Explorer 8 has some new features Chrome lacks. Its private browsing mode, called InPrivate, is the first I’ve seen that not only leaves no traces on your own computer, but also bars Web sites from collecting some types of information on where you’ve previously been surfing.

While IE8′s address box and search box remain separate, each also offers rapid suggestions; and both are organized better than Chrome’s. For instance, the suggestions that drop down from its address bar are divided neatly into categories drawn from the browser’s own guess, your history and your favorites. One downside: For this to work in Windows XP, you must first install Microsoft’s desktop search product.

Like Chrome, IE8 lets you switch your default search provider, but it also allows you to switch search engines on the fly. When you type in a search term, icons for alternate search engines appear at the bottom of the suggestion list, and you need only click on these to see search results from, say, Google, instead of Microsoft’s own Live search engine.

IE8′s Accelerators feature presents a blue-arrow icon above any text on a Web page that you have selected. Clicking on the icon brings up a list of actions you can take using the selected text, such as posting it to a blog, emailing it, mapping it or searching it. While these actions are set by default to use Microsoft’s own Web services, you can change them to use Google’s, Yahoo’s, or those from other companies.

Microsoft also has built in a feature called Web Slices. These are portions of a Web site that a site developer can designate to appear in the IE8 Favorites bar and to constantly update themselves. An example might be bidding on eBay.

Like Chrome, IE8 also displays useful information whenever you create a new tab, including a list of recently closed tabs and a list of Accelerators.

With the emergence of Chrome, consumers have a new and innovative browser choice, and with IE8, the new browser war is sure to be a worthy contest.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Two Laptops Travel Light, but Flaws Weigh Them Down

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 08 May 2008 00:01:00 +0000

For years, the ThinkPad line has been the class of Windows laptops — offering rugged, simply designed machines with great keyboards, even in small sizes. But ThinkPads have always been aimed at corporate buyers, not the broader consumer market. So Lenovo (0992.HK), the Chinese company that took over the brand from IBM (IBM), is bringing out a new, consumer-focused line called IdeaPads.

[ See post to watch video ]

I’ve been testing one of these new IdeaPads, a small, thin model called the U110, that’s sized to be ideal for travelers. It looks nothing like a classic black ThinkPad. It even comes in red, has swirls etched into its case, and can supposedly log you in by recognizing your face using its built-in camera.

At the same time, I’ve been trying out another similarly sized little laptop, the U2E from Asus (23571.TWO), a Taiwan-based company whose products are relatively new to the U.S. This computer has its own distinctive design: It’s clad in real leather. It also has a camera, and it can be ordered with one of the new solid-state drives, which have no moving parts, instead of a hard disk.

Both of these small laptops are subnotebooks, meaning they weigh 3 pounds or less. Like many subnotebooks, they have small 11-inch screens and somewhat cramped keyboards. And, like most subnotebooks, they are costly — an $1,899 starting price for the Lenovo and $1,999 for the Asus.

Each can only be ordered with Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows Vista operating system, which means you can practically walk your dog in the time it takes them to start up. Each has a standard battery so wimpy that it provides poor battery life, so both companies throw in bigger batteries that provide decent power, but make the computers larger and heavier.

I wish I could recommend a clear winner between these two contenders, but both are mixed bags. The IdeaPad is lighter, thinner, and has a slightly faster processor. The Asus has a built-in DVD drive, while the Lenovo’s is external. The Asus also has the new, faster “N” type of Wi-Fi networking, while the IdeaPad is stuck with the older, slower “G” type.

Lenovo’s small, thin IdeaPad model called the U110.

The IdeaPad has two big flaws, in my view. First, it has blown the biggest advantage of its sibling, the ThinkPad: a great keyboard. The IdeaPad keyboard has huge, flat keys with slick, shiny surfaces and almost no space between them. I found typing difficult with this setup. I asked two people who are faster typists than I am to try it: One liked it, one hated it. The IdeaPad also dispenses with the TrackPoint, the little pointing stick for moving the cursor that many ThinkPad lovers revere.

By contrast, the Asus U2E keyboard, while nothing to write home about, is more conventional and more usable, with traditional tapered keycaps that provide better key separation. The mouse buttons underneath the touch pad on the Asus, while thin, were sturdier than the ones on the IdeaPad, which had a cheap feel to me.

The second big flaw in the IdeaPad is its most hype-worthy feature: face recognition, which is meant to spare you the need to type in a password to log in. In a dozen tests, it recognized me only twice. I asked my wife to try it, and it never once recognized her. It did recognize a colleague successfully, but we tried it only once with her.

The Asus’s biggest flaw is its solid-state drive. It adds $700 to the price, for a total of $2,699, but is only 32 gigabytes in size, tiny by today’s standards. To compensate, Asus throws in an external hard disk, but that’s an inconvenient solution.

You can order the Asus with a standard 120-gigabyte internal hard disk for the $1,999 price, but that’s still $100 more than Lenovo charges for the IdeaPad with the same sized drive.

Each machine has three USB ports, a video-out connector, a slot for camera memory cards, and an ExpressCard slot, typically used for cellphone modems. Neither has a built-in cellphone data modem. The Asus has three gigabytes of memory, the Lenovo just two.

In my tough battery tests, where I turn off all power-saving features, turn on the Wi-Fi, and keep music playing constantly, the Asus got about 1.5 hours and the Lenovo a miserable one hour and three minutes. This means that, even with a more normal usage pattern, you’d be lucky to get two hours out of the IdeaPad and 2.5 hours from the Asus.

With the included bigger batteries, the IdeaPad clocked out at three hours and 10 minutes, which means you could probably stretch it to over four hours with more normal use. The Asus’s bigger battery delivered an excellent five hours and 29 minutes in my test, which points to nearly seven hours in more normal use. Asus says it has tweaked its machines to improve battery life somewhat.

However, while the jumbo battery on the IdeaPad barely protrudes from the machine, and keeps the weight under three pounds, the one on the Asus U2E is so huge it looks like a tumor and pushes the weight to 3.4 pounds, well above the subnotebook cutoff.

If you’re a frequent traveler, both of these models are worth considering, but each has its own flaws.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Consider Your Needs, Then Use This Guide to Buying a Laptop

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:01:00 +0000

For years, I have focused my twice-a-year computer buyer’s guides on desktop PCs, with less-frequent columns focusing on laptops. Now that the latter are outselling the former, though, I am going to center my main buying guides on laptops. Many of the specs I recommend will also apply to desktops.

As always, this is a general guide aimed at mainstream, nontechnical consumers who dwell on common tasks such as email, instant messaging and surfing the Web; managing and lightly editing photos, videos and music; and using basic office applications. It is not intended for heavy gamers, video producers or corporate buyers.

[ See post to watch video ]

There’s a vast variety of laptop models, but this guide is meant to cover the most common types of laptops, those with screens from about 12 inches to 17 inches, and weights ranging from around 2.5 pounds to 7 pounds.

For this column, I’m not including the category of tiny machines now called netbooks, with screens under 10 inches. I am also ignoring the huge, heavy laptops with screens larger than 17 inches that are primarily aimed at gamers.

Even the remaining mainstream machines range wildly in price, from bargain-basement models at $350 to high-end ones that can top $3,000. In my experience, the top brands for technology and reliability are Apple and Lenovo‘s ThinkPad line, but various models from Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba and Dell are also worth investigating.

So, here is a quick guide to the key factors you should consider when buying a laptop.

Size: If you are a constant traveler, think about the subnotebook models, which generally weigh 3 pounds or less. There are two types of these. The classic subnotebook has a small screen, 12 inches or less, and a cramped keyboard. This year, a new type emerged, with a full keyboard and a normal 13.3-inch screen packed into a thin, light body. There are two of these: the MacBook Air from Apple and the Lenovo ThinkPad X300. All subnotebooks are relatively costly, typically ranging from $1,500 to over $3,000.

If your laptop will mostly stay at home, the office, or in class, a 5-7 pound machine with a screen of either 13.3 inches or 15.4 inches is the best bet. A well-equipped model in this class is likely to run you between $800 and $1,200. Typical models in this class are the Dell Inspiron 1525, the HP dv6700 and the Apple MacBook.

Windows vs. Mac: This is the eternal question. In my view, Apple’s Leopard operating system is faster, better and far less prone to malicious software than Microsoft’s Vista operating system. And the Mac laptops also come with better built-in software. The $1,099 MacBook is a solid, fairly priced machine, and the $1,999 MacBook Pro is even better. Both also can run Windows.

But Windows laptops are often less expensive, tend to have a greater variety of ports and slots, and come in more styles and sizes.

Apple’s MacBook

Operating system: If you are buying a Windows laptop, be aware that Vista is slower than Windows XP, in my experience, and still has compatibility issues with add-on hardware and software. If you’d prefer to stick with XP, you will find that many fewer models are available with it. And Microsoft has decreed that after June 30, mainstream, name-brand laptops will no longer come pre-equipped with XP.

Video: I recommend getting an LED-powered screen, which is brighter and saves power. Also, if you are choosing Vista, or if you do a lot of converting video for use on portable devices, consider getting a laptop with a separate video card inside that has its own memory.

Memory: If you’re buying an Apple laptop, two gigabytes of memory is plenty. If you’re using Vista Home Premium, I’d consider three gigabytes for best performance.

Processor: Any dual-core processor will be fine. Don’t pay a penny extra for faster processor speed.

Storage: In a mainstream laptop that will be your main computer, look for a 160-gigabyte hard disk or larger. A new kind of storage, called SSD, or solid state disk, is now available. But it is still way too costly for most users, and at the moment is available only in smaller capacities.

Battery life: Many laptops today rarely spend time away from an electrical outlet. But if yours will, look for a battery life of at least three hours between charges.

Wireless: Make sure your new laptop has the new, faster “N” version of Wi-Fi built in. Many cheaper laptops don’t. You can also get a cellphone modem built in, but they are costly and carry a monthly fee. You can always add an external cellphone modem later.

Other features: A built-in camera and microphone can be quite useful, and so can a feature on some Windows machines that allows you to play music and videos without fully booting up the computer.

Don’t let yourself be swayed by sales pitches, or by fanaticism for or against Windows or the Mac. Think hard about how you use your computer and what your budget will allow, and stick to those priorities.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com. Find all my columns and videos online, free, at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Uninstalling Leopard on a Mac

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 00:01:00 +0000

(See Corrections & Amplifications item below.)

There’s no other major item most of us own that is as confusing, unpredictable and unreliable as our personal computers. Everybody has questions about them, and we aim to help.

Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability.

Last week you discussed how to uninstall Windows Vista and go back to Windows XP. But I own a Macintosh, and after upgrading to the new Leopard operating system from Tiger, I find I dislike Leopard. How can I uninstall Leopard and go back to Tiger?

To restore the older Tiger operating system after upgrading to Leopard, you should first find the Tiger DVD that came with your Mac. Insert it and reboot your Mac while holding down the “C” key. This will boot the computer from the DVD rather than your hard disk.

On the screen that shows available hard drives for installation, click on the Options button and select the “Archive & Install” option. Also, select the choice called “Preserve Users & Network Settings.” If you have enough free disk space (roughly six gigabytes), Tiger will be reinstalled and your home directory and applications should be preserved.

However, just as with Windows, performing such an operating system “downgrade” on a Mac can be tricky for a nontechnical user. You might want to hire an expert to do it. If you do decide to try it yourself, I strongly urge you to first read an Apple document that contains more details, including some potential pitfalls and limitations of the “Archive and Install” procedure. It’s at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107120.

Occasionally, I try to download a song or artist that would be in the “Easy Listening” category, but neither iTunes nor Amazon lists that genre. How can I find them?

In the iTunes store, there is indeed a genre called “Easy Listening” that contains thousands of tracks. The problem is that it’s not listed on the front page of the store. To find “Easy Listening” and the songs it contains, select “Browse” from the box labeled “Quick Links” at the upper right on the store’s front page. Then click “Music” in the far left column and “Easy Listening” in the column labeled “Genre.”

In Amazon’s MP3 download service, I couldn’t find a listing for the “Easy Listening” genre. But some of the songs and artists you’re looking for could be listed under other categories. Try directly searching for an artist’s name or a song title in the search box at the top of the MP3 Downloads page.

Why isn’t a FireWire port included on either of the two new slim laptops you recently reviewed, the Lenovo ThinkPad X300 and the Apple MacBook Air?

Both laptops are so small that they can only include a limited number of ports, though the Lenovo has many more than the Apple. And standard FireWire, also known as “1394″ or “iLink” on some machines, is becoming redundant in mainstream consumer computers, since the USB 2.0 ports offer roughly the same speed and are compatible with many more devices. There is a faster version of FireWire, which Apple uses on most of its desktop models. But there is also a faster version of USB in the works.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online free of charge at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Corrections and Amplifications

Due to incorrect information provided by the manufacturer, this column erroneously says that Macintosh users performing a “downgrade” from Apple’s new Leopard operating system to the older Tiger system should select an option called “Preserve Users & Network Settings.” In fact, that option isn’t available when installing an older version of the operating system over a newer one. Users must instead manually relocate their data files and settings after performing the downgrade, a process that is explained at this Web page: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107297.

Price May Be Steep, but Thin ThinkPad Has Abundant Features

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:01:00 +0000

I am writing these words on a new laptop computer that packs a full-size screen and keyboard into a body that’s quite thin and light. And it has a solid-state drive with no moving parts instead of a hard disk.

But this isn’t the much-touted Apple MacBook Air, introduced last month with all those qualities. Instead, it’s a new ThinkPad from Lenovo, the X300. While the two machines are both impressive products, they are different in key respects.

[ See post to watch video ]

I’ve been testing the ThinkPad X300 and I have found it to be a solid, innovative laptop that will be perfect for many mobile PC users. It isn’t as sexy or inexpensive as the MacBook Air, but it has numerous features the Apple lacks, especially a wide array of ports and connectivity options, a built-in DVD drive and a removable battery.

I can recommend the X300 for road warriors without hesitation, provided they can live with its two biggest downsides: a relatively paltry file-storage capacity and a hefty price tag. This ThinkPad starts at $2,476 for a stripped-down model and at $2,799 for a preconfigured retail version with a half-size battery. The configuration I expect to be the most popular, with a full-size battery and DVD drive, is about $3,000.

The key factor in both of these downsides is the solid-state drive, or SSD, which replaces the hard disk. The SSD is fast and rugged, but today it can hold only a cramped 64 gigabytes of files and is very costly. Apple offers a MacBook Air version with the same solid-state drive for a similar high price. But Apple also has a much more affordable $1,799 model with an 80-gigabyte standard hard disk. Lenovo doesn’t.

Lenovo’s ThinkPad X300

The X300, due to go on sale next week at lenovo.com and at a few retailers, isn’t as thin as the MacBook Air. In fact, at its thinnest point it is almost as thick as the Apple is at its thickest point. And when the new ThinkPad is ordered in what are likely to be its most common configurations, it is heavier than the three-pound Apple and, in fact, fails to make the three-pound cutoff that typically denotes a “subnotebook.” Only one configuration breaks that barrier, at 2.93 pounds, and it is the stripped-down model with just a half-size battery and no DVD drive.

But the X300, which will come with either Windows Vista or Windows XP, is still very thin and light. It’s under an inch thick and even at its heaviest is only 3.5 pounds. Yet, like the Apple, it packs in a widescreen 13.3-inch display and a full-width keyboard.

Plus, Lenovo has used that extra thickness to good advantage. While the MacBook Air’s extreme thinness makes it gorgeous, it left no room for an Ethernet jack, a removable battery, a built-in DVD drive or a cellphone modem. The X300 has all these things, either standard or as options, plus three USB ports, compared with just one for the Apple. The Lenovo even offers GPS location-finding, the ability to connect to new wireless USB devices and future support for a forthcoming wireless network standard called WiMax.

The ThinkPad has another advantage: Even though its screen is the same size as the Apple’s, it is higher resolution, so more material can be seen without scrolling. Some people find that higher-resolution screens make text too small to read easily, but I didn’t experience any such problem on the X300.

In my tests, the X300 performed very well, even though it has a relatively slow processor, slower than the MacBook’s.

But the ThinkPad’s battery life was only fair, and was inferior to the Apple’s. In my tough test, where I turn off all power-saving features, set the screen to maximum brightness, turn on Wi-Fi and run a repeating play list of music, the X300 lasted three hours and five minutes. That was 24 minutes less than the comparable MacBook Air. And this was on the $3,000 configuration with a full-size battery and a DVD drive. The more basic models, with a half-size battery, would last only half as long, according to Lenovo.

MacBook Air

In more normal use, the model I tested would likely last under four hours on a charge, and the base models maybe two, compared with about 4.5 hours for the Mac.

I also tested another version of the ThinkPad, which substitutes a second, half-size battery for the DVD drive. It got five hours and 15 minutes, which means you could likely get 6.5 to seven hours in normal usage. That model costs around $2,850.

There are two more factors worth mentioning. I believe that both the Mac operating system and the software that comes with it are superior to the Windows operating system and built-in software offered on the ThinkPad. And the Mac isn’t susceptible to the vast majority of viruses and spyware, and doesn’t require third-party security software.

Also, the ThinkPad’s screen, when opened, stands significantly higher than the Mac’s, so it is less usable in a coach seat on an airplane when the person in front of you reclines.

If you’re happy with Windows, can afford the price tag, and value the many ports and connectivity options Lenovo has packed in, the thin and rugged X300 is a great choice. It’s a notable engineering accomplishment.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com. Find all my columns and videos online, free, at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Surfing the Web on a Television Set

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 00:01:00 +0000

Here are a few questions I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox contained questions about surfing the Internet on a television set, the security of Apple’s Safari Web browser for Windows computers, and the cost of AT&T’s wireless service for laptops.

Can you recommend a device that would allow me to surf the Web on a bedroom television connected via Ethernet and to control the device via a wireless keyboard or remote control?

Perhaps the most direct approach would be to buy the MSN TV 2 device from Microsoft that is specifically meant for browsing the Web on a TV from a distance and can be used with Ethernet. It costs $200, plus a monthly fee, comes with a wireless keyboard and remote, and can be ordered at msntv.com.

A second option would be to buy a small computer with a wireless keyboard and hook it up to the bedroom TV instead of to a computer monitor. For instance, I have surfed the Web this way using a tiny $599 Mac Mini computer from Apple, which comes with a wireless remote and accepts almost any wireless keyboard, though it doesn’t come with one. There are numerous Windows computers that could do the same, and many cost less, though most are larger.

Another method would be to use a game console capable of surfing the Web, even if you have no intention of playing games. These are made to work with TV sets, and some can use a wireless keyboard and/or wireless controller to do the job. For instance, the $250 Nintendo Wii game machine has an optional Web-browsing function.

Apple has released a Windows beta version of Safari. Is it any safer to use than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer?

It’s too early to tell, as the Windows version of Safari is still in beta and is very new, to users and hackers alike.

Certainly, operating in Windows will make Safari much more vulnerable to attack than it is on the Macintosh operating system, if only because the writers of malicious software aim their firepower overwhelmingly at Windows. While Internet Explorer is hardly impregnable, it has become safer over the years, and Microsoft certainly has much more experience battling Windows security issues than Apple does. Apple has already issued some security updates for this new version of Safari and will undoubtedly have to keep issuing more to keep ahead of the bad guys.

I am thinking of buying a ThinkPad laptop from Lenovo with AT&T BroadbandConnect. Do I still need to buy some sort of card from AT&T and insert it into the laptop, and must I pay a subscription fee to them?

No, and yes. The laptop likely has the modem for AT&T built in, so you can connect to the Internet via AT&T’s cellular network without buying an external card. However, the service isn’t free. You can’t use it without a subscription, which typically runs $60 a month.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online free of charge at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com

H-P and Lenovo Offer New Wave of Laptops: Small and Affordable

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 18 May 2006 23:59:00 +0000

The laptop factories of China have begun to churn out a new wave of diminutive, portable PCs for brand-name computer makers that should help lighten the briefcases of road warriors without lightening their wallets too much.

These latest models aren’t quite as small as the teeniest laptops available, like Sony‘s Vaio TX series, which are flaunted at airports like skinny fashion models at a photo shoot. But the new contenders have larger screens than the TX and cost less than the $2,300 or more that the Sony commands.

These new laptops all have screens that measure 12.1 inches diagonally. All hover around four pounds, though in some basic configurations some can weigh as little as three pounds. Even well equipped, they cost between $1,400 and $1,700.

Gateway began the most recent wave with a slender model released earlier this year, the NX100X, starting at just $1,400. But, unlike the Sony TX and other new models, it lacks an internal DVD drive.

I’ve been testing and comparing two newer entries that do pack an internal DVD drive into their small cases. One is the first ultraportable laptop from Hewlett-Packard in years, the Compaq nc2400. The other is one of the first crop of portables to be sold in the U.S. under the brand name of Lenovo, the Chinese computer giant, which now owns the IBM ThinkPad line of laptops. It’s called the Lenovo 3000 V100.

The H-P Compaq NC2400, already shipping, can be bought for as little as $1,549. A stripped-down model of the new Lenovo 3000 V100, which will be available soon, can be had for a mere $1,099. But the configurations of both computers I tested — selected and provided by the manufacturers — each cost precisely $1,649.

I like both of these machines, despite the fact that the H-P and Lenovo marketing people apparently skipped the class in business school about giving products simple, memorable names. You won’t go wrong with either of these laptops. But for their identical price, you get very different computers.

Based on “speeds and feeds,” the raw specs of a computer, the Lenovo offers much more than the H-P. But based on the key components of road-warrior mobility — weight, size and battery life — the H-P crushes the Lenovo.

Lenovo 3000 V100

The H-P is a dark-gray and black model that feels svelte, but solid. It is less than an inch thick, and the version I tested, with an extra-strength six-cell battery that protruded from the rear, weighed in at 3.8 pounds.

The Lenovo has a silvery lid and a black body that manages to look bulkier than it really is. It’s 1.25 inches thick, and the version I tested, which also had an extra-strength, six-cell battery that protruded from the rear, weighed 4.1 pounds.

The H-P also has a smaller footprint for a desktop or airline tray — 11.1 by 8.38 inches vs. 12 by 8.9 inches for the Lenovo.

I put the two contenders through my harsh battery test, where I turn off all power-saving features and keep the hard disk working.

The Lenovo’s battery lasted two hours, 41 minutes, an OK time for a little laptop. In more normal use with power saving on, it would likely approach 3.5 hours.

But the H-P Compaq nc2400 blew away the Lenovo on battery life, with a startling endurance of four hours, 27 minutes. This performance, one of the best I have ever recorded, suggests that with its power-saving features turned on, the little H-P could allow you to work for six hours straight without recharging.

On speeds and feeds, however, the tables are turned. The H-P I tested has a relatively wimpy Intel Core Solo processor running at 1.2 gigahertz, though it can be ordered with faster processors. The Lenovo has an Intel Core Duo, with the equivalent of two processors, running at two gigahertz. The H-P has 512 megabytes of memory; the Lenovo has one gigabyte — twice as much. The H-P has a 40 gigabyte hard disk. The Lenovo’s hard disk is 100 gigabytes.

I didn’t find the H-P sluggish at the typical, mainstream tasks I threw at it. But for the same price, you get much more power and storage in the Lenovo.

About the only basic spec where the H-P beats the Lenovo is screen resolution. The H-P’s is slightly higher — 1,280 by 800 compared with 1,200 by 800 on the Lenovo.

Both machines include built-in fingerprint readers, but the Lenovo also has a built-in camera, which the H-P lacks. The Lenovo also uses the same keyboard found on the ThinkPad line, which I regard as the best on any laptop.

The Lenovo lacks the rugged magnesium frame and hard disk shock-protection features that were pioneered on the ThinkPad. The H-P does have versions of these protective features. And the Lenovo uses a typical touch pad to control the cursor, while the H-P uses a mid-keyboard pointing stick.

With these two contenders, your $1,649 can either buy you a somewhat smaller machine with bare-bone specs but fabulous battery life, or a better-equipped model that’s a bit bigger and much more power-hungry.

Take your pick.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com.

Sony, Lenovo Laptops Are Pricey, but Offer Lots of Features, Power

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 23:59:00 +0000

Sony and Lenovo, the Chinese company that took over IBM’s personal computer line, are rare among Windows laptop makers. In contrast to many competitors, they exhibit lots of creativity and distinctiveness in their laptop designs, much like Apple Computer.

I’ve been testing two new small and light laptops from these companies: the Sony Vaio SZ160, and the Lenovo ThinkPad X60s. Both weigh in at under four pounds, so they won’t break your back when you tote them on the road. But each has plenty of power, decent battery life and a rich set of features. And, despite their small size, these machines are capable of serious work, partly because both use Intel’s new Dual Core processor, which packs the equivalent of two processors into one.

I like both machines, but they have different benefits and downsides. The ThinkPad is the latest entry in a long line of small, rugged laptops with great keyboards and strong battery life. It has a speedy, optional, internal cellphone modem for connecting to the Internet over a cellphone network. But it lacks an internal optical (CD or DVD) drive.

At the cost of just a little more weight and size, the Sony I tested includes an optical drive and a bigger screen, but it lacks a cellphone modem and has weaker battery life than the Lenovo configuration I tested. For enhanced security, both laptops have built-in fingerprint readers that can bolster or replace typed passwords. Neither is a bargain-basement laptop. The Sony SZ series starts at $2,000, and the ThinkPad X60 series starts at $1,900. They come in many different configurations, and thus many different prices. The ThinkPad X60s I tested, which included a cellphone modem, an extra-strength battery and a dock with an optical drive, costs $2,300. The Sony SZ I tested, which didn’t include a dock, an extended battery or a cellphone modem — but did have that internal optical drive — costs $2,500.

The Lenovo ThinkPad X60s

The Thinkpad X60S I tested weighed 3.46 pounds, while my Sony SZ160 test model weighed just 3.72 pounds, even with the bigger screen and optical drive. The ThinkPad is 10.5 inches wide by 8.3 inches deep, and it’s between 0.8 inch and 1.11 inches thick. The Sony is 12.5 inches wide by 9.3 inches deep, and it’s between 0.9 inch and 1.3 inches thick. The Sony’s larger dimensions are mainly a result of its bigger screen — 13.3 inches, versus 12.1 inches for the Lenovo. The Sony screen is also higher resolution.

I put both laptops through my usual tough battery test, wherein I turn off all power-saving software, crank up the screen brightness to the max, turn on the wireless networking, and then play an endless loop of music.

My test ThinkPad, with its double-capacity battery, lasted a very impressive four hours and 49 minutes. In normal use, with power-saving turned on and a more typical work pattern, I’d expect it to last six hours or more, which is excellent. My test Sony, which had a normal-size battery, lasted just three hours and two minutes, even though the machine was running on its so-called Stamina setting. In normal use, the Sony would likely top four hours. Presumably, a Lenovo with a standard battery would do worse, and a Sony with an extended battery would do better.

Neither can match Apple when it comes to the quality of its built-in software. Lenovo’s is too geeky and is aimed more at corporate than consumer customers. Sony’s is more consumer-oriented, but it’s inconsistent and confusing.

The ThinkPad X60s, like its predecessors from IBM, is compact and rugged, with strong hinges and the best keyboard in any laptop. It has both built-in Wi-Fi wireless networking and a built-in cellphone modem that works on Verizon’s speedy EV-DO network.

My test machine worked well on all the typical computing tasks most people do, but there was one small defect in a Lenovo-supplied wireless software program that kept turning off the Wi-Fi. The company says this problem appeared only in early models like mine and has been fixed. Overall, the quality seemed as good as when IBM was making the machines.

The Sony Vaio SZ160

But the Thinkpad X series really should have an internal optical drive by now. When it was introduced, few ultra-small laptops had them, but since then Sony and others have figured out how to install optical drives in even smaller boxes.

The Sony SZ series is interesting because, while it’s not Sony’s smallest or lightest line, it packs a larger screen and an optical drive into a package that’s under four pounds. Like the Lenovo, it worked well at all typical tasks.

The SZ’s biggest innovation is that it has two graphics systems and the aforementioned “Stamina” mode, controlled by a switch, which allows you to use the weaker graphics hardware to save battery power. Its biggest downside is that its optional cellphone modem (available this summer in a pricier premium model I didn’t test) works on Cingular’s EDGE network, which is only about a seventh as fast as the Verizon network Lenovo uses.

You won’t go wrong with either of these well-designed laptops. For road warriors, they are worth their hefty price tags.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com.

Using a Fingerprint To Log On to Your PC

Walter S. Mossberg and Katherine Boehret — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 00:01:00 +0000

Once the stuff of James Bond films, fingerprint-reading sensors have now gone mainstream as a way to log on to your computer, or on to Web sites you visit. In the consumer market, fingerprint recognition is sometimes sold as a better form of security, since prints are presumed to be harder to spoof or copy than passwords; and sometimes as a convenience, since it’s much easier to swipe your finger than to remember a bunch of passwords.

Even if they are used mainly as a convenience, fingerprint readers can contribute to security, because people using them are less inclined to adopt insecure methods for remembering passwords, like writing them on visible Post-it Notes, or using the same simple password again and again.

Still, fingerprint readers are relatively rare in consumer PCs, so we thought we’d try some out to see how easy and effective they are. We were curious about how simple it is to train a computer to recognize a fingerprint, how accurate the readers are, and how easy it is to use them instead of passwords.

We tested two laptops with built-in fingerprint readers — a high-end $2,149 ThinkPad Z60t from Lenovo Group Ltd., and Toshiba America Information Systems Inc.’s $1,899 Protege R200. We also tried Microsoft Corp.’s $40 Fingerprint Reader, which attaches to the USB port of any computer, desktop or laptop, running Windows XP.

All three of these can use your fingerprint for logging on to a computer, rather than typing your password each time, and each also functions likewise with Web sites that require user name and password identification.

Our conclusion is that these fingerprint readers were simple to set up and worked pretty well, but that some of the software that controls the process is confusing and could be a lot better. Fingerprint authentication isn’t perfectly secure. Nothing is. Some fingerprint readers have been fooled by plastic molds of fingerprints. But they sure are convenient.

Also, other types of biometric authentication are competing with fingerprints. While we were doing our tests, we got a look at one challenger, a gadget from Fujitsu that reads entire palms and the veins running through them. As your hand hovers palm-down over this device for a couple of seconds, special technology captures an X-ray-like image of your palm and its veins.

This technology is more advanced than fingerprint-recognition devices, as it won’t work unless it detects blood coursing through the veins in your hand. Also, Fujitsu says, it’s much more difficult to imitate another person’s internal structure, since it can’t be viewed by the naked eye, nor can it be lifted from a surface, like fingerprints. But it won’t be in consumer computers for years.

Microsoft’s Fingerprint Reader was straightforward. After loading its included software, we plugged it into our PC’s USB port. Its oval surface area was a perfect fit for a finger, making it the most comfortable to use, and its center glowed red once attached.

We followed a setup wizard to get started, selecting two fingers from a diagram of right and left hands. After selecting each — we used our right and left index fingers — we touched each correct finger onto the Reader four times to get an accurate scan. To use this recorded print as our password, we simply touched our finger to the Reader whenever opening a new browser screen that required password data. We had to type in our user names and passwords the first time, but after that the reader software allowed us to substitute a fingerprint swipe.

We tried various Web sites, including Trumba (the online calendar we use); the New York Times Web site; Evite.com, an invitation service; a cooking Web site called Epicurious.com; Yahoo.com; and Gmail.com. We couldn’t open Evite using Microsoft’s Fingerprint Reader, as it uses a Java technology that Microsoft explained wouldn’t work with the device.

When setting the Reader up with Gmail, we entered the wrong password for our account, and accidentally saved it with the fingerprint, so whenever we tried to use our fingerprint with the log-in page the wrong password was automatically entered. This was easily fixed by retyping the password within the device’s Log-On Manager.

This device works only on Internet Explorer 6.0 or above and the MSN 8.0 or 9.0 browser. If you ever should decide you no longer want to use the Fingerprint Reader, you can simply unplug it and go back to entering your passwords on required screens.

The Lenovo ThinkPad and Toshiba Protege both use barely noticeable fingerprint recognition devices that are built into the lower right edges of their keyboards. Each worked the same way — by dragging a finger over it, top to bottom, like petting an animal with one finger.

But we found the Lenovo software, Client Security Solutions, to be much too geeky. For one thing, it confused us with two options for controlling the start-up of the machine. One was the familiar Windows log-in process, and the other was a “power-up” log-in, which occurs before the Windows screen appears and doesn’t exist on most computers. But, it was possible to set up the Lenovo system in such a way that you were never given the opportunity for a different user to log in to Windows.

Also, an annoying screen offering fingerprint access to technical settings of the PC, something mainstream users would never use, would appear each time our ThinkPad was restarted, before it disappeared too quickly to read it.

Lenovo told us that we could use its software to replace other passwords on the computer with our fingerprint, including those on Web sites — like the Microsoft device. We walked through about seven steps in the ThinkPad’s detailed Client Security Setup Wizard to enable this feature, and then started training the laptop to remember our user names and passwords for Web sites. But this process took much longer than the others, and in the end we still weren’t successful in swiping our fingerprint in place of Web site user names and passwords.

The Toshiba Protege’s OmniPass Finger Print Software was much more user-friendly. A few explanatory menus walked us through how to replace our Windows log-in names and passwords with fingerprints, and replacing Web site passwords was just as intuitive. We simply typed in a Web site address — such as www.yahoo.com — and after entering our user name and password, selected a “Remember this password” option. A key icon appeared on the screen, which we dropped near the log-in data that we wanted to be remembered. The next time that site was opened, we simply swiped a finger instead of entering a password.

All three devices advise users not to rely on their fingerprint readers for absolute security, and instead, encourage them to create and use “secure” passwords — those that contain tricky combinations of numbers and letters — for very important password-protected data.

We were favorably surprised by how much time we saved by using our fingerprint, rather than typing passwords into various Web sites.

Fingerprint recognition is a smart solution for saving time and avoiding the memorization of long lists of passwords. Just make sure the system you choose is meant for average users, not engineers.

Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com.